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A 20-year-old man has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison over an explosion in Malmö in southern Sweden on Christmas Eve.

The blast was part of a series of three explosions in December last year directed at real estate company Victoria Park's premises in the trouble-hit Rosengård area of the city.

But Malmö District Court only found the 20-year-old guilty of the Christmas Eve explosion, saying there was not enough evidence to connect him to the other two blasts, which took place on December 20th and 21st.

His lawyer, Mikael Nilsson, said on Friday that his client had not yet decided whether or not he would appeal the sentence.

“He's just happy that he's been convicted of what he's done and that the punishment wasn't harsher,” he told regional newspaper Sydsvenskan.

The court heard that three families had received threats of eviction from the real estate company last year, prompting the bomb plot which saw a total of six people charged, three of whom were found not guilty.

Two other suspects, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, were also found guilty of keeping watch while the older man planted the bomb. The youngest was sentenced to juvenile care while the other was given probation. The trio was also told by the court to pay 53,464 kronor ($6,365) in damages.

The court's decision is unrelated to, but comes in the wake of, a wave of violence in Sweden's third largest urban centre including shootings, other explosions, hand grenades being thrown and cars and buildings set on fire.

As a result, police announced last month that they were stepping up their presence in known trouble-hit areas such as Rosengård and Seved, where around 30 people believed to be from criminal backgrounds are being tracked by officers.